The IRS has announced that they will begin accepting efiled returns and start processing paper returns on January 19, 2016. BTW, for those interested the due date for individuals in most states will be April 18th.

Apparently they grumbled loud enough for action to be taken. Last Friday, Sen. Pat Roberts introduced legislation which would ban the proposed IRS regulation from taking effect. It appears lots of people are concerned about the increased risk of ID theft that would occur if this regulation were to be implemented.

especially those concerned about ID theft. Current law requires charities to provide a written acknowledgement to anyone who donates a gift of 250 or more on any given day. This new proposal allows a charity to instead elect to provide the IRS with an annual list of names and social security numbers of individuals who donated to them. Charities don’t like it because they would be required to obtain social security numbers from their donors and then securely store that information. Many individuals don’t like the idea because it means they would need to provide their social security numbers to each applicable charity to which they donate. Since ID thieves have successfully stolen financial data from major retailers, banks, and even the IRS web site, I’m sure they would be happy for the opportunity to steal that information from charities.